Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Damsel in Distress (most biased garbage I've seen in a long time)

After watching the first part of Damsel in Distress I decided to watch the second part of her video serious.  For me I thought this was a very interesting subject since video games are something I find very enjoyable in my life and something I know a lot about.  So naturally when anything comes along of a similar nature I'm quick to critique it.  First off I want to say that she is well spoken and the videos are done at a professional level, yet that isn't surprising as she had a kickstarter for the whole thing.  She uses a lot of good examples and does make some valid arguments, however here is what she did wrong.
You can look at everything she says from another perspective, in my opinion a far more reasonable perspective and all it requires is for you to not believe that all men are sociopaths.  The first problem is that Anita doesn't understand how video games are made.  Video games are the opposite of real life, in real life you have people, and they find a purpose in life.  For example "you are a woman, and therefore you are a goal" is sexist, it judges you on your gender, it says nothing about the woman but it does say something about the speakers opinion on women.  But video games don't work that way. It's not like peach existed, and they decided that since she's a woman, she's a goal, instead video games need a goal, they need incentive for the player. The goal comes first.  Well, how do you give the player an emotional incentive? By hitting him were it hurts, hurt a loved one, take what is dearest to the players heart.  Also a big point is that the target audience is men, and what is dearest to a man's heart? Well a woman.  This doesn't say anything about women, or about men's opinion on women, it only shows you something about the fantasies of men, who they want to be, and what they treasure most.  They want to protect women, that is their instinct.  But Anita sees this and sees only negativity. It takes a special kind of indoctrination that lets you look at a game where a man risks life and limb in order to be of use to a woman, and conclude that he is a vile oppressor.
Furthermore I would just like to leave a picture that is a list of strong female characters in video games.

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